


The Great Camping Adventures of the Wilson-Rogers Family

by mrs_d



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Camping, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Insect Harm, Kid Fic, M/M, scary campfire stories, septender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-10-10 05:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: A collection of ficlets about what happens when Steve and Sam take their kids camping.





	1. Impulse Buy, or How It All Began

Some of Sam’s fondest childhood memories are of sleeping under the stars. And even though Iraq threatened to ruin it for him, he’s always wanted to let his kids have the same experience. So when the opportunity presents itself, one Sunday afternoon in April, he makes the impulsive decision to buy a second-hand tent trailer without consulting anyone.

He borrows Bucky’s truck to bring it home on Monday morning while the kids are at school and Steve’s running errands. He pulls into the drive and gets to work right away, setting it up so he can show it off.

He’s almost finished when Steve gets home. “What on earth is that?” he asks, stepping out of the SUV, which he parked on the side of the road. 

“It’s a tent trailer,” Sam explains. “Or a pop-up camper, depending on who you ask.” 

“Oh,” says Steve, but Sam can tell this doesn’t clear anything up for him. 

Sam finishes folding the canvas around the corners of the beds and secures the velcro. “I know, it’s not really big enough for all of us to sleep in, but the big fancy ones cost a fortune, and I always liked sleeping in a tent. Figured the kids ought to learn what that’s like, too.” 

Steve nods. He walks across the gravel to get a closer look. Sam, not reassured by this reaction, watches him. 

“It’ll do for you and me,” Sam goes on. “And Robbie, until he gets a little bigger. I got a real tent for the girls, it’s in the truck.”

“Uh huh,” says Steve. He’s frowning, his face screwed up like he’s trying to figure something out. It’s his man-out-of-time look, which Sam doesn’t see too often anymore. Except, of course, when Shayla shows him memes on the Internet.

In short, he seems dazed. Sam licks his lips. “Do you like it?” he asks, a little nervously. “I probably should’ve asked you first, but I kinda wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It’s definitely that,” Steve murmurs. He gestures to the door without answering Sam’s question. “Can I go in?”

“Yeah,” Sam says quickly. “Please, go ahead.”

Steve hunches his shoulders to get through the smaller-than-average door. Sam hovers outside, watching him take in the two-seater dinette set, the two-burner stove, the tiny sink, cupboards and drawers. 

“There’s two beds,” Sam narrates, “and the table folds down, so you can put the cushions on it and another person can sleep there. Like if it’s pouring rain, or if one of the girls wants to bring a friend or something. And there’s no toilet, obviously,” he adds, babbling now, because Steve must hate it if he’s not saying anything, and Sam needs to explain why the hell he thought this was a good idea, “but we can make it work. I figured we’d rent a campsite, and then we’d have a table outside to eat at, plus a fire pit and bathrooms and showers and all that. And there’s always the car for storage, it’s not like we need to bring much besides food and—”

“Sam,” Steve interrupts finally, turning back to him. 

“Yeah?” Sam replies cautiously.

“You bought this for us?”

Sam nods wordlessly.

“So we could go camping together, as a family?”

Sam nods again, wondering what Steve’s getting at, and why his eyes are so shiny.

Then a smile erupts on Steve’s face, brighter than the sun outside. “Sam, I love it,” he says. 

Sam’s insides go warm with hope. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Steve extends a hand, pulls Sam inside and into his arms. “I can’t believe you bought all this for us, thank you.”

Sam hugs Steve back, tightly, laughing in joy and relief. He feels Steve’s lips brush the side of his neck. “I love it,” Steve says again. “Love you.”

Sam pulls back just enough to give Steve a soft, warm kiss. “Love you, too,” he murmurs when they part. 

Steve hangs on to Sam’s hands, squeezes them once. He looks around the trailer again with bright, excited eyes. “So when do we leave?”


	2. Inclement Weather: A Learning Curve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some mild hurt/comfort here, but fear not! Happy endings abound.

“Are you sure we should be going?” Steve asks on Friday morning. “They’re talking rain.”

“Well, _ they _ can stuff it,” Sam replies, huffing with the effort of lugging the cooler out of the kitchen. “Put that super serum to use and give me a hand here, will you?”

“Right, sorry,” says Steve. He hurries over and takes the cooler — it’s heavy, even for him. “Jeez,” he remarks, “how much food are you bringing?”

“Baby, we have three kids,” Sam reminds him. “Not to mention you.” 

“Right,” Steve says again. “Should we get another cooler?”

“Nah, this is enough,” Sam says. “It’s jam-packed, but it’ll do.”

“Okay,” Steve replies. He’s a bit skeptical, but Sam’s the expert camper, so Steve trusts him. 

He heads out the front door and down the porch steps. Sam pops the back of their SUV — which for some reason the kids have named Vera — and Steve loads the cooler. The rest of their supplies, he notices, are neatly packed in the drive, so Steve takes the liberty of fitting them into the back. 

He hears Sam calling for the kids while he loads up the car, and within minutes, Michelle is at his elbow.

“Can I help?” she asks. 

“I think I’ve got it,” Steve answers. “Why don’t you go in the house and make sure you’ve got everything you need?”

“Like my DS,” she says, like she’s just thought of it.

“You don’t need your DS,” Steve tells her. “Besides, we won’t have a place to plug it in.”

“Oh, right,” she says, clearly a bit disappointed. 

“But you can bring some board games, or a deck of cards. You know, old-fashioned fun.”

“Like the kind you had when you were a kid?”

“Exactly.” Steve pauses in his job, assesses what’s still to go in, and worries that it’s not all going to fit. Michelle, squinting at the arrangement of items in the back of Vera, seems to be thinking the same thing. 

“You know, if you move that little bag down into that hole there, you’ll make a line,” she says after a second. 

“What?” Steve replies, baffled. 

“Tetris,” Michelle answers, like this is supposed to mean something. Then she turns and heads back up to the house.

Steve stares after her. “Okay,” he says finally, and shrugs it off. 

He does move the small bag, though, and it does fit perfectly. 

* * *

They drive for a good chunk of the afternoon and arrive at the park just in time for dinner. They check in, and Sam sets up the trailer while Steve starts a fire in the pit. Once it’s hot enough, the kids cook hotdogs and marshmallows — only occasionally setting them on fire intentionally.

After dinner and dishes, Steve gives Sam a nod, and Sam brings out the surprise: a pack of sparklers. In the blue-black twilight, they burn bright yellow and leave orange trails behind them. Robbie is over the moon, and Michelle loves anything that’s even remotely close to fireworks. Shayla, their oldest, is smiling, too, drawing complicated designs in the air. Steve takes lots of photos with his camera, testing the longer exposure speed to see how it looks, and he gets some really good shots that are definitely going on the wall later. 

They settle down then, gathered around the fire to watch it burn. As the night closes in around them, Shayla asks if she can tell a ghost story. Michelle really wants her to, but Steve doesn’t think it’s a good idea — Robbie hasn’t gone to bed yet, and he’s only seven. He doesn’t need any nightmares tonight. 

Before Michelle can get upset with Steve for vetoing it, Sam suggests something else: a game where they make up their own story, once sentence at a time, alternating between “Fortunately” and “Unfortunately.” All of Shayla’s sentences involve spooky happenings, and Michelle’s read like something out of the pulp magazines Steve used to read when he was a kid — full of aliens and knights and princesses. Robbie’s a little young for the game, but he catches on quick, though most of his sentences are some variation of “Unfortunately, he farted,” followed by lots of giggles. They get a pretty good story out of it, all things considered, and it’s a great way to wind down. 

When Robbie’s bedtime comes around, Sam takes him into the trailer, and Steve tells the girls that they can tell different stories now if they want to. Shayla says she doesn’t feel like telling a ghost story anymore, so Michelle asks Steve about the things he did when he was a kid. Steve shares a bit — mostly the parts where he comes across in a good light — but he gets the impression that his tales aren’t nearly as entertaining as Michelle had hoped they would be. She asks Sam next, and Sam’s are much better. One of them even involves a ghost — apparently his grandmother’s farmhouse was very creepy, which is something that not even Steve knew, so Shayla’s pretty happy about that, too. 

They let the girls stay up till almost 11, till the fire’s nothing but dull embers, and Michelle is yawning every other minute. Sam escorts them to the bathroom while Steve tidies up the campsite, making sure all their garbage is in the car, so they don’t attract any raccoons or skunks in the night. 

He and Sam go to bed at the same time the girls do, with Steve making a point of reminding them not to be too loud, because the campground has a curfew. But he doesn’t really expect them to sleep. They’re teenage girls — or one of them is, anyway, and the other’s not far behind. Chances are they’ll talk all night, especially if Michelle asks her older sister for a ghost story that she wouldn’t tell in front of their parents. 

Sure enough, Steve can hear their muffled voices for a long time after lights out.

“I hope they don’t freak themselves out too much,” he says in a low voice, as he and Sam climb into bed. 

“They’ll be all right,” Sam reassures him. Then, like he can read Steve’s uncertain expression in the dark, he adds, “Trust me.”

“Well, okay,” Steve chuckles. “You are the expert, after all.”

“Damn right,” says Sam, rolling onto his side, so Steve can spoon up behind him. “Goodnight,” he says once they’re settled. 

“Goodnight,” Steve echoes. He thinks about the wonderful evening they’ve had, and he falls asleep imagining how much better tomorrow is going to be. 

* * *

He awakens in the dark to the sound of Shayla saying, “Get Dad. Quick.”

It’s difficult to get out of the trailer bed quickly, and almost impossible to do it gracefully. When he gets his feet on the ground, he steps into his sandals and pulls on his sweater, which smells strongly of campfire smoke. 

Behind him, Sam stirs on the bed. “What’s wrong?” he mumbles.

“Kids,” is all Steve has to say before he’s getting up, too.

Steve opens the door of the trailer at the same minute that Michelle puts her hand on the door handle, and when he does, he notices several things at once. First, it’s raining — the sound that’s been on his periphery was raindrops hitting the roof of the trailer. Second, Michelle is shivering. And third: behind her, Shayla is hanging on to their tent, which is in three inches of water and seems to be trying to float away.

_ Shit, _ he thinks, but out loud, he tells Michelle to get inside and get warmed up. He steps down from the trailer, and rainwater instantly gets between his toes. It’s chilly and gross — he wishes he remembered to pack his rubber boots — but he ignores it and goes straight to his daughter. 

“We got out and it started floating,” Shayla reports, still holding onto the tent and getting wet and muddy in the process.

“It’s all right, I got it,” Steve tells her, taking over. “Go on in and get dried off.”

“You sure?” Shayla says uncertainly.

“Yeah, we’ll take it from here,” Sam says, stepping into Steve’s line of sight. 

Shayla heads for the trailer, while Sam takes hold of the other side of the tent. At a nod from Sam, they lift it off the ground; the bottom drips. 

“Where are we taking it?” Steve asks.

“Other side of the trailer,” says Sam. “I was worried the ground was a bit low here. Guess I was right.”

“You should always trust your instinct, Sam,” Steve tells him, not for the first time. “You bring any tarps?” 

“Three. Folded in the back of Vera.”

“Thank God,” says Steve.

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “I should’ve made a canopy tonight, but I thought we’d be okay till morning.”

While they round the corner of the trailer, a flash of lightning turns a cloud on the horizon purple. A slow, distant roll of thunder follows. “Nothing we can do about that now,” Steve says. “It’s not safe to be out here much longer.”

“Nope,” says Sam. They get the tent where they want it, where it’s not floating anymore. “Not safe in the trailer, either. If it gets worse, we should go to the pavilion or the bathrooms.”

“Right,” Steve says, though he feels stupid for not knowing that the trailer wouldn’t be safe in a thunderstorm. “I’ll get the tent posts, you grab the tarp?”

Sam nods and goes. If he can tell that Steve would rather put himself in danger, carrying metal rods during a thunderstorm instead of him, he doesn’t say anything about it. 

The rain ramps up while they work, until soon they’re both drenched and spattered with mud. The thunder draws nearer; lightning flashes again on the horizon. 

“Where’s Thor when you need him?” Steve mutters at one point, though Sam doesn’t seem to hear him over the sound of the storm.

Once the tent is stable, Sam drapes the heavy tarp over it, and Steve lashes it down with plastic stakes that sink easily into the wet ground. When that’s done, Sam ducks into the tent with garbage bags, which he fills with the girls’ stuff and hands back. Steve runs them into the trailer and tells the girls to wake Robbie up. 

“We’re gonna go stand under the pavilion because there’s lightning,” Steve explains, trying to keep the worry out of his voice so they’re not frightened. “Just in case.” 

“Okay,” says Shayla, with the responsible nod of an oldest sibling. Steve gives her a quick smile and turns back to the door, only to find Sam at the step with Steve’s rubber boots in his hand. 

“Need these?” he asks.

“Oh, I could kiss you,” Steve exclaims fervently.

“I know,” says Sam with a tight but genuine smile.

They trade places, with Sam heading inside and Steve stepping out. He kicks off his sandals and squelches his wet feet into his boots. He’d give anything for dry socks right about now, but this is better than nothing. Thank God for Sam, he thinks, the way he often has over the last several years. 

The kids emerge a minute later, decked out in bright yellow ponchos — something else that Sam must have packed when Steve wasn’t looking. Poor Robbie looks asleep on his feet; Steve picks him up at once and carries him before he can stumble. Sam locks up behind them, clicking the key fob to make sure Vera’s secured, and off they go.

It’s only a few hundred feet down the lane to the pavilion. When they arrive, they find they’re not the only campers to have had this idea; several families are sheltered here — some grouped together at the edge of the cement, watching it rain, some sitting on picnic tables and talking. One older man has a battery-operated radio close to his ear, probably listening for the forecast, while three kids with far too much energy for — Steve checks his watch — 3:26AM chase each other around the cement in what looks to be a very condensed game of tag.

Steve lays Robbie down on an unoccupied picnic table, while the girls join him on the bench. Sam stays standing, watching it rain. Michelle, ever the inquisitive one, asks about tornadoes, so Steve starts to explain how they form, what the signs are, and how they’re pretty unlikely in this part of the country. 

But while he’s talking, he’s watching Sam, and his worry is building. Sam’s confidence — the self-assuredness he’d been showing since getting out of bed twenty minutes ago — is gone, and he seems dejected. Watching him while he answers Michelle’s questions, Steve realizes that his husband had been doing what he does best — staying calm and collected in a crisis — and now he’s crashing.

He’s about to say something, to reach out to Sam and offer some comfort, when an extremely bright burst of lightning flares, followed a split-second later by a crash so loud that Steve can feel it reverberate in his feet. Shayla jumps in alarm; Michelle grabs her and hangs on tight. Several of the children in the pavilion scream; one woman gathers her toddler to her chest and comforts him when he starts to wail. 

Robbie, however, doesn’t stir. “This kid could sleep through a train wreck,” Steve says, hoping that humor Sam will snap out of his funk, but aside from a faint, distracted smile, nothing changes.

“He’s gonna be so sad he missed this,” says Michelle, nodding to her younger brother. “He likes thunderstorms.”

Steve doubts very much that Robbie would be enjoying this, but he nods. “They’re pretty cool,” he admits. “Assuming you’re safe.”

Sam winces slightly and turns his back on them, facing the rain. Steve instantly regrets his choice of words.

“Sorry we woke you up,” says Shayla after a moment.

That catches Sam’s attention. “No,” he says, turning back. “Why would you say that? You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Okay,” Shayla says, but she’s talking like she’s walking on thin ice. Steve doesn’t like it.

“We thought maybe it was leaking,” Michelle explains, clearly oblivious to the weird energy that’s snuck into this conversation. “The tent just started puffing up from the bottom, and it kinda felt wet, so we thought we’d go inside, but then when we got out it started floating.”

“Freaked me out a bit,” Shayla adds, her eyes dropping to the table.

Sam comes over and crouches to be at eye level with the girls. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he says again, more firmly. “It’s my fault. I never would have put you in the tent if I’d known a storm was coming, and I’m sorry.”

Steve can recognize the guilt in Sam’s voice, the fear at the thought of what might have happened. Steve knows where it’s coming from, but he wishes Sam weren’t so hard on himself.

“None of us can control the weather,” Steve reminds him gently. “Next time—”

“Maybe there shouldn’t be a next time,” Sam says, and it breaks Steve’s heart.

“Sam,” he starts, but Michelle cuts him off. 

“I want to go again,” she says. She turns to her sister, then looks to Steve with a pleading expression. “We’re gonna go again, aren’t we?”

“Before the rain, it was fun,” Shayla tells Sam. “We’re safe, and we got a good story out of it. I definitely want to go again, Dad-s,” she corrects herself, with a look that slides from Sam to Steve.

Steve huffs out a little laugh at the familiar joke. He raises his eyebrows at Sam. “Three against one,” he teases.

“Four,” Michelle says quickly. All of them look to her in surprise. “What? Robbie loves roasting marshmallows.”

A smile had already started to creep across Sam’s face, but it blooms in full when Michelle tells him this. “All right,” he says at last. “All right, we’ll try this again.” 

“Next weekend?” Michelle asks hopefully.

Steve chuckles. “Not that soon, kiddo,” he says. “It’s gonna take a week just for us to dry out.”

“Yeah, if it stops raining tomorrow, we’ll hang a clothesline,” Sam tells her, getting to his feet. He circles the table to Steve’s side and sits. “We’ll air out the tent, your sleeping bags, the whole deal.”

“And if it doesn’t stop raining?” Shayla asks.

“Then I guess we’re playing cards in the trailer,” says Sam. “Did Grandma teach you Hand and Foot yet?”

“No,” Michelle replies. Shayla shakes her head. 

“Well that’s good, because she cheats,” Sam says matter-of-factly. The girls laugh, and Sam starts explaining the rules. 

While he does, the thunder and lightning fade, and the rain slowly dies down until it’s little more than a trickle. Steve just listens. He takes Sam’s hand and intertwines their fingers as Sam tells stories about playing card games with his mother, and camping under the stars with his father. 

When finally the rain quits altogether, and the rest of the campers have left, Steve picks Robbie up again, and Sam leads the five of them back down the gravel path to their campsite. The girls are yawning, and Steve is, too, but they take an extra few minutes to look up at the newly revealed night sky, and listen to Sam point out some of the visible constellations. 

They finally climb into bed half an hour later, taking Robbie with them and leaving the girls the other mattress. Steve wraps Sam up tight and kisses his neck. 

Sam smiles, just visible in the faint light. “Goodnight, Steve,” he whispers. “Thanks.”

“For what?” Steve asks.

Sam shakes his head and doesn’t reply. Steve holds him close and leaves it be. 

On Sam’s other side, Robbie sleeps as peacefully as ever. He’ll probably be awake the earliest out of any of them, but Steve will deal with that in a few hours. For now, all’s well that ends well: he’s got his family safe and sound, his husband in his arms, a sky full of stars overhead, and the great outdoors just inches away. 


	3. That Time They Go Fishing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild warning for vomit, but it's not graphic.

One weekend, for a change, Sam books them a place by Lake Michigan, and rents a boat and fishing gear. He always loved fishing with his granddad, after all. Steve’s delighted, too, saying that it’ll be a great way to spend quality time with the kids. 

The kids themselves aren’t overjoyed — Shayla makes it clear that just because she catches lake fish doesn’t mean she’s going to eat lake fish; Michelle worries about how much the hooks will hurt the fish, since she saw something on _ National Geographic _ about animals’ pain receptors; and Robbie keeps asking why he can’t just catch an alligator instead. Still, Sam’s looking forward to it. It’s been years since he’s been out on the water, and nothing beats fresh trout roasted over an open fire.

Unfortunately, Steve isn’t a boat person. Even more unfortunately, none of them know this until they’re on the water. 

“Shouldn’t you have learned this about yourself before now?” Sam asks him when he’s between heaves. “I mean, didn’t you storm the beaches at Normandy? How did you get through D-Day without being on a boat?”

“I wasn’t there,” Steve replies, wiping the sweat off his greenish face. “Footage was staged, I was up north on a covert op.”

Sam blinks in surprise. Steve freezes, then swears too softly for the kids to hear. “Forget I said that. Nobody’s supposed to know that.”

“Okay,” says Sam slowly. He presses a hand to Steve’s forehead, thinking that his husband must be delirious with fever to accidentally reveal intel that’s been classified for most of a century. 

“What’s wrong with Dad?” Robbie asks. 

Steve’s skin is clammy, but not overly warm. “He’s just seasick,” Sam tells Robbie.

“He can’t get _sea-_sick, we’re on a lake,” Robbie objects.

“It’s just an expression,” Michelle pipes up from behind him. “Do we have any ginger ale? That always makes me feel better.”

Sam smiles, but shakes his head. “No, I didn’t bring any.”

“It’s okay,” says Steve, making a valiant effort to get to his feet. “I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not, sit down,” Sam tells him. “Okay, reel in your lines,” he says to the kids. “We’re gonna take Dad back to shore.”

“Sam, we’ve only been out here a few minutes,” says Steve. “We can stay. Really, I’m f—”

He retches and leans over the side of the boat again. Sam winces and looks away. 

“I’m all tangled,” Robbie announces. He holds up his rod. “See?” 

“Yeah,” Sam answers, distracted by Steve.

“I don’t think I’m doing this right,” Michelle adds. Sam glances her way and sees that she’s reeling the line backwards. “Why isn’t it coming back?”

“It’s all right, we’ll sort it out later,” Sam tells her. “Just bring in the line for now.”

“But it’s tangled,” Robbie insists. His voice is inching up into the red zone. Sam turns to Shayla, who’s been quiet this whole time.

“Shayla?” he says, but Shayla’s got her iPod on, her line in the water like a pro. Of all of them, she’s the only one who seems to be having a relaxing time fishing. “Shayla,” Sam repeats, louder, and finally he taps her on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” she answers, taking out one earbud. 

“Help your sister with her line, please,” he requests, going to Robbie. “We’re going back.”

“Already? Why—?” Shayla’s eyes land on Steve, and she grimaces. “Oh.”

Sam nods, trying to ignore the unholy sounds that Steve is making at the front of the boat. People can probably hear him on land, he thinks, as he crouches down to help Robbie get untangled. 

Finally, they’re all back in their seats and Sam’s got the engine going. The water is choppy today, the boat bouncing up so much so that Robbie — safe in Shayla’s arms — laughs with delight. Sam cuts a glance at Steve, wondering how he’s doing with this motion, but Steve looks better — maybe it’s the wind in his face, or the knowledge that it’ll be over soon. Sam’s not sure, but it’s a relief. 

When they get back to the dock, Sam leaves Robbie with Steve. Three kids is a lot for one person to look after, even when they’re not in the middle of a lake, and Robbie’s still a bit young to appreciate it anyway. Besides, he seems perfectly happy with the promise from Steve that he’ll get a popsicle when they stop at the park shop for ginger ale. 

“You’re sure you’re feeling okay?” Sam asks Steve one last time, while he wrestles Robbie out of his life jacket.

“I’ll be fine,” Steve reassures him. He does look much better, now that he’s back on dry land. “Be careful?”

“Always,” says Sam. He stands up once Robbie is free, and leans in automatically for a kiss before he remembers.

“Yeah, you don’t want to do that,” Steve chuckles, stepping back. 

“Right,” Sam says with a laugh. “Maybe you’d better just kiss the ground instead.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” Steve replies. He looks down at Robbie. “Okay, say bye, kiddo, Daddy’s going fishing with the girls, and you and me are going to get a popsicle.”

“I want cherry,” says Robbie — because clearly he has his priorities straight.

Steve shrugs at Sam, and Sam shrugs back — the _ that’s-our-kid-for-you _ expression that all parents share. 

“Bye, Dad!” Shayla calls from the boat. 

“Feel better!” Michelle adds.

Steve waves at the girls, then blows a kiss at Sam and turns away. As Steve and Robbie walk down the dock, Robbie’s small hand in Steve’s large one, he hears Steve say, “You know, I think I want cherry, too.”

Sam watches them go, then climbs back into the boat. He pauses before starting the engine, though, to ask a question that he would have asked a lot sooner, were it not for Steve’s seasickness.

“Hey, do you know why fish swim in schools?” 

Shayla shakes her head. Michelle looks intrigued. “No. Why?”

“Well, they can’t walk,” says Sam, and he waits. 

Half a beat later, Michelle bursts into laughter. “Dad,” Shayla groans, though she’s grinning. “That’s terrible.”

“I know, I know,” says Sam, laughing as well. “I couldn’t help myself.”

The girls shake their heads, still giggling, and Sam starts the engine. He pulls away from the dock, steering them back out into open water — there’s plenty of fish out there to catch, after all, and he’s got lots more jokes, too. 


	4. In Which Children Fight, Parents Reflect on the Passage of Time, and Mosquitoes Enjoy a Hearty Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Major Mosquito Death.

“Babe, did you get another thing of bug spray?” Sam calls from the bedroom. 

Steve looks up from the sandwich he’s making for Robbie — peanut butter and salami, he will never understand this kid’s palette — and thinks for a moment. _ Did _ he buy more bug spray? This week has been a blur; he honestly has no idea.

“Maybe?” he answers finally. He rests the knife on top of the open peanut butter jar. “Sorry, hon, I don’t remember.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have a photographic memory or something?” Sam teases, coming into the kitchen. Robbie is at his heels, his favorite dinosaur in his hands.

“That was only when I was on the job,” Steve replies. “Now that I’m retired, my brain is mush.”

“Your brain’s always been mush, baby, it’s just that people used to have to nicer to you about it.” 

Steve scoffs, faking insult, but before he can offer a rebuttal, Shayla walks in from the living room. 

“Ouch,” she says. “That was cold, Daddy.”

“Thank you,” Steve says pointedly. “You want a sandwich? I’m making some for the car.”

Shayla gives the peanut butter and the open bag of salami a skeptical look. “Are they all like that?”

“No, I’ve got ham and cheese, too,” Steve replies. “And I think there’s a bit of turkey left.”

“No, I ate that yesterday,” says Michelle, walking in behind her sister. “Can you make me a PB and J?”

“You got it,” Steve answers, reaching for more bread. 

“I want that, too,” says Robbie.

“Sorry, kiddo, I’ve already made yours,” Steve tells him. 

“Nuh huh,” says Robbie. He’s crouched down, walking his dinosaur across the floor and up the cupboard.

“Yeah, see?” says Steve, holding out the container with his sandwich in it, neatly cut into quarters. 

He has to remind himself to be patient as Robbie continues to move his dinosaur up until his arm is stretched as far as it can go. Then he stands up and hops the dinosaur from one surface to the next until it’s on Steve’s arm. Finally, Robbie — and his dinosaur — sniff the container dubiously. 

“What kind is it?” he asks.

“Peanut butter and salami,” Steve replies. “That’s the kind you said you wanted.”

Robbie screws up his face like there’s a bad smell in the air. His sandwich is kind of stinky, but Steve’s not going to tell him that.

“I don’t want that anymore,” says Robbie. “Can I have jam?”

Steve suppresses a sigh. “Not this time, bud. I already made you the sandwich you wanted.”

“But I don’t want it,” is the perfectly predictable answer. 

_ You did ten minutes ago, _ Steve wants to say, but instead, he shakes his head. “This is the sandwich you asked me to make, so this is the sandwich I made for you. You can have a different one next time, okay?”

For a second, it seems like it will be a battle. Robbie gets a determined look in his eye, he lowers the dinosaur, and Steve really thinks that this is going to end in a time-out. Sam — who’s been chatting with the girls on the other side of the kitchen — glances over, and Steve sees him get ready to step in and offer some back-up.

Then Robbie sighs — the kind of explosive sigh that only a little kid can muster. “Fine.”

Sam frowns. “Fine?” he repeats. “What kind of manners are those, little man? You know better.”

Robbie drops his eyes to the floor, sheepish. “Thank you, Dad,” he says meekly. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Michelle chimes in, and Shayla echoes her. 

Steve feels his cheeks go warm — it’s just sandwiches. “You’re welcome,” he tells them all. 

“Now,” says Sam. “Since you’re all here, I have a question for the group.” Everyone’s eyes go to him. “Does anyone know if we have another thing of bug spray?”

“Maybe I bought it and packed it already,” Steve answers. He wishes he could remember.

“Yeah, you did,” says Michelle suddenly. “We got some the same night we got Shayla’s tampons, remember?”

“Michelle!” Shayla smacks her sister’s arm.

“Ow,” cries Michelle. “What?”

“You’re the worst,” Shayla tells her.

Michelle makes an offended sound. “Menstruation is not a dirty secret, you know,” she says haughtily, still rubbing her arm. “I can’t wait to get my period.”

“You’re still the worst,” Shayla mutters.

“Girls,” Sam intervenes, but it’s not necessary; the tiff is over almost as soon as it began. “Can we bring it back to the bug spray? I don’t want to get eaten alive this weekend. Are you sure you guys picked some up, Michelle?”

“Yeah,” Michelle answers, but then she hesitates. “I think.”

“Why don’t we just stop somewhere on the way?” Steve suggests. Robbie’s dinosaur is hopping across the counter again, so he pushes everything back to clear the kid a path. 

“Rawr,” says Robbie appreciatively, while Sam shakes his head.

“I’m not going to a store on Friday of a long weekend,” he says. “This is supposed to be a relaxing trip, and, besides, it’s gonna be a long enough drive without extra pit stops.”

“Okay,” says Steve. “Well, surely I bought some. We’ll probably find it when we get there.”

“Probably,” Sam agrees. “So, are we ready?”

It takes them another half an hour to get out the door, between last minute bathroom visits and forgotten items. But finally, the trailer’s hitched, Vera’s loaded, and the kids are in the back seat with snacks, water, and entertainment. Shayla’s got her iPod and a book, Michelle has her DS, and Robbie’s got kid-friendly headphones and Sam’s old smartphone, loaded with pre-downloaded cartoons. 

“I think we’re ready,” Steve says, as they pull out of the driveway.

* * *

They arrive at the campground in the early afternoon to find that there’s been a mix-up; the staff accidentally double-booked their lot, so they’ve been assigned to a different one. It’s a lot more wooded than they’re used to, but the shade will be nice, and it’s not supposed to rain. Steve imagines it’ll be a good spot for star-gazing. 

They pile out of Vera, and Steve feels himself start to sweat almost immediately; he’s spoiled, these days, with air conditioning in the car. 

“Can we go swimming?” Michelle asks, the minute her feet touch the ground.

“Soon,” Sam replies. “We gotta get set up first.”

“It’s hot,” says Robbie, panting dramatically. 

“Well, come on, let’s get unloaded, and then we’ll head to the pool,” Steve tells him. 

Shayla opens the back of Vera and hands her little brother a sleeping bag, which he promptly drops on the grass. 

“Okay, _ now _ can we go swimming?” he asks. 

Out of sight of his children, Steve rolls his eyes. “Soon,” he reiterates. 

“Yeah, so quit being a brat,” Shayla tells Robbie. 

“Be nice,” Steve reminds her. It’s not something he has to say that often; usually she’s better with him than this. Steve blames the heat and humidity. And, to be fair, Robbie _ is _ being a bit of a brat.

While he and Shayla and Robbie take things out of the car, Michelle helps Sam with setting up the trailer. She’s been fascinated by it since day one, with the way that it can sink into a flat rectangle and then pop back up big enough to sleep four people.

Sam’s letting her have a turn at the crank when Steve carries the tent past them. 

“Up there?” he calls, pointing towards an elevated space that not’s quite under the trees. Since their first flooding adventures, they’ve been more careful about where they set up. 

“Yeah,” Sam calls back. “Looks good.”

Steve sets the tent down and crouches to undo the zipper. Before he can, a high-pitched whine distracts him. He shoos the mosquito away, and focuses on setting up. 

Shayla comes over to help, and they’ve got it done within minutes. Robbie, who was sitting under a tree with his dinosaur, follows Steve back to Vera and picks up the sleeping bag he dropped earlier. While Steve starts setting up the canopy, Robbie carries the sleeping bag inside the tent, and he doesn’t come back out. In Steve’s peripheral vision, Shayla is unloading as much as she can, carrying her and Michelle’s things to the tent. 

Steve’s almost finished with the tarp, and he’s thinking about how peaceful it is — except for the buzz of the bugs, of course — when he hears raised voices. He follows them to the tent, where Robbie is visible on the other side of the screen. 

“I was here first,” he’s saying.

“It doesn’t matter who was here first, I need you to move,” Shayla answers him. She’s not shouting, but she’s more agitated than Steve usually sees her, especially around Robbie. 

“No,” Robbie yells back. 

“It’s my tent,” Shayla counters. “Mine and Michelle’s, Dad told us.”

“Nuh huh,” is Robbie’s sophisticated reply.

Shayla exhales a frustrated breath and turns, catching sight of Steve. “Dad,” she begins, “Robbie won’t get out.” 

“I was here first!” 

“It doesn’t matter, it’s not yours!”

Steve holds up a hand. “Stop, stop.” He waits until both of them fall silent. “What’s going on?” he asks calmly.

“I want to change into my shorts, but he won’t get out,” Shayla reports at once. The last two words come out through gritted teeth.

“I was here first,” Robbie says again, stubbornly.

“Okay,” Steve says, because Shayla’s about to go off. “Okay, enough. Shayla, you remember where the bathrooms are? We passed them on the way in.”

“Yeah. So?” Steve raises an eyebrow, and she drops the attitude. “Yeah, I remember,” she tries again.

“Good,” says Steve. “Why don’t you get changed there instead.”

“But Dad,” she starts, but Steve barrels on.

“Take your bathing suit, so you can put it on under your shorts,” he concludes. 

“Oh,” says Shayla, surprised.

“And Robbie,” Steve goes on, stepping closer to the tent and looking at him through the screen. “You can stay in there for now, but once Dad’s got the trailer set up, you’re going inside to change. And when we get back from the pool, you’re out, okay? The tent is for the girls. You have to ask before you can come in, and they’re allowed to tell you no.”

“Okay,” says Robbie, kind of glumly. He flops down on the pile of the girls’ stuff that’s heaped in the middle of the tent. “I just like it in here,” he says, like he’s still not quite done the argument. “It’s cool.”

“It is cool,” Shayla admits. “Maybe when you get a little bigger, you can hang out in there with us.”

“How much bigger?” Robbie asks, raising his head. 

“Well, you gotta join the double digits club first,” Shayla answers — a reference to when Michelle celebrated her tenth birthday last winter.

“But that’s forever from now,” Robbie complains. Shayla shrugs. 

“Them’s the breaks, kid,” she says, which makes Steve huff out a laugh. “Now move, you’re on my bag.”

“Please,” Steve reminds her.

“Please,” she repeats dutifully. 

Robbie lets her get her swimsuit out, and Shayla heads down the path to the bathrooms. Steve watches her until she’s out of sight — reminding himself that she’s 14 and totally capable of walking 500 yards down the road by herself — and then he finishes hanging the tarp.

He sends Michelle to the bathrooms a few minutes later, when she and Sam are done with the trailer, then they find Robbie’s swim trunks and send him into the trailer to change. While they’re waiting for the kids, Steve slings an arm around Sam’s waist and surveys the campsite. He has to pull away a minute later, because it’s hot and because there’s a mosquito at his ear again, but it’s nice while it lasts. 

“Not bad, huh?” he says. 

“Yep, you’re a real outdoorsman now,” Sam tells him. Steve knows he’s teasing, but he decides to take it as a compliment. 

“Thanks,” he says brightly. “It’s good, I think, for the kids.” At Sam’s quizzical look, Steve realizes that his brain was rushing ahead of his mouth again. “I just mean, doing this with them, giving them these positive memories — it’s a good thing.”

“Oh, for sure,” Sam agrees, but he sighs. “I just wish they weren’t growing up so fast.”

Steve hums in agreement, even as he shoos a bug off his forearm. “Shayla’s almost old enough to drive, Michelle really wants her period, and Robbie’s impatient to join the double digits club. Hard to believe.”

“Feels like just yesterday Shayla moved in with us.” Sam smiles fondly. “She was so tiny, wasn’t she?”

Steve chuckles. “Yep. Shot up like a weed in grade five though. Soon she’ll be taller than me.”

“Yeah, but that’s only because you’re shrinking in your old age.”

Steve rolls his eyes at his husband, but before he can answer, the trailer door opens. Robbie comes down the steps in his swimming trunks, with his beach towel tied around his neck like a cape. 

Steve sees what’s about to happen and surges forward with superhuman reflexes, catching him when he trips.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yep,” Robbie answers, bounding away.

Sam laughs and stops him, crouches down to untie the towel for him. “No capes!” he exclaims, and Robbie giggles. Steve knows that’s a line from something — a movie they watched a little while ago — but he can’t remember the name of the character, or the film. His brain really is mush these days.

It doesn’t matter. He helps Robbie apply sunscreen while Sam steps into the trailer to put his trunks on. A few minutes later, the girls come back — wearing lip gloss, Steve realizes, but he doesn’t comment on it — and he hands them the sunscreen, too. 

“Aren’t you going swimming, Dad?” Shayla asks. “Where’s your bathing suit?”

“I think I’ll sit by the pool and read,” Steve replies. 

“But aren’t you hot?” asks Robbie. There’s a white blob on the top of his ruddy brown ear. 

Steve reaches over and rubs it in for him. “I’ll be fine,” he says, because he will be. “A book in the shade sounds heavenly right about now.”

“Okay,” says Robbie, in his _ grown-ups-are-weird _ voice.

Sam emerges from the trailer in his bathing suit. Steve breath catches a little in this throat, but he saves the mental image for later. He and Sam are in very close quarters with their kids for the next three days, after all. 

“Ready?” Sam asks. A chorus of _ yeahs _ follow from the kids.

“You four go ahead, I’ll grab my book and lock up,” Steve says. He pecks Sam’s lips and pats his ass as their paths cross. “Right behind you.”

“Good, that’s where I like you,” Sam murmurs, too quiet for the kids to hear. 

Steve feels himself blushing, but he waves while Sam leads the kids out of the campsite, then he heads to the trailer to get his novel and his keys.

A mosquito flits in front of his face, its wings singing their annoying song. Steve takes an extra second to make sure it doesn’t get inside.

“Ugh,” he says, wiping his fingers on the grass. He grabs the hand sanitizer, too. 

* * *

Between his kids yelling for him to watch while they perform various feats, the bugs that continue to harass him, and the distracting sight of his husband in the pool, Steve doesn’t get a lot of reading done. But it’s still relaxing, and that’s the point. 

When they get back from the pool, they’ve got a little time before dinner, so the girls start a hula hoop contest while Robbie settles in at the picnic table with his pencils and coloring books — it’s so muggy that no breeze threatens to blow the pages away. Sam pulls out his own novel, the latest in the detective series that is his guilty pleasure, and Steve parks himself in a lawn chair to do some sketches.

Or, that’s the plan, at least. Every few seconds he has to stop drawing and swat a mosquito away from his face.

“Just use some of the bug spray, baby,” Sam advises, not looking up.

“It’s fine,” Steve replies. “Save it for the kids.”

“If you think so,” Sam says, but Steve catches him watching a second later when he does a complicated chair dance to avoid two bugs coming for his face at once. 

“Do you want to try, too, Dad?” Michelle calls over to him. 

“Yeah, we can share,” Shayla adds, brandishing the hoop. 

“You’re all very funny,” Steve tells them, but he does get up and go to the trailer to find the bug spray, hoping that he did in fact buy a new bottle and place it in their luggage.

After ten minutes of searching, he has to conclude that he did not buy a new bottle. The current one is two-thirds gone, and he winces as he squirts a tiny amount onto his arms, legs, and neck and rubs it in.

Maybe it’s because he’s already sweating, maybe it’s because he used so little, maybe it’s because God hates him, but it doesn’t work. He spends the next twenty minutes slapping bugs. He takes aim at a particularly big one on his thigh, and his hand comes back bloody.

“Gross,” he mutters.

Sam looks over. “Boy, you really obliterated that one,” he comments idly.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, disgusted. “You gonna be okay if I head over to the bathroom and wash up?”

Sam glances around their very calm campsite and appears to mull it over. “I think I can handle it,” he says seriously.

Steve chuckles and gets to his feet, laying his drawing materials aside with his one clean hand before heading down the path to the restrooms. Three more mosquitoes meet their end while he’s en route, and he feels the pinch of another bite on his neck as he steps through the men’s room door. 

“Ow, what the f— Oh, hi,” he quickly redirects, when he’s face-to-face with a man and his young son on the other side of the door. 

The man’s eyes are wide for a split-second, but he adjusts and gives him a small smile. The kid, however, is staring at him. 

_ Please don’t ask for an autograph, _ Steve thinks. He really couldn’t handle that right now. 

“How’s it going,” the man asks, but it’s clearly a politeness, since he’s out the door, tugging his child close behind him, before Steve can reply.

Steve exhales a sigh of relief and goes straight to the sink. He’s so focused on washing his hands that it takes a second for him to glance up at the mirror. When he does, he realizes why the kid was staring at him. 

Bite marks splash an erratic pattern over his neck and forearms. He isn’t sure if it’s the harsh fluorescents or what, but he would swear they weren’t that bad when he applied the bug spray a little while ago. Then, as he watches, some of them fade completely away, leaving nothing but pale, smooth skin. 

“Supersoldier serum strikes again,” he sighs, and he heads back to the campsite.

* * *

He uses the rest of the bug spray. He stands fully in the smoke of their cooking fire. He surrounds himself with the citronella candles that they always bring but have never lit. He wears long sleeves, long pants, socks and shoes. 

The bugs keep biting him. 

At 4AM, when the whine of a mosquito wakes him up and he discovers at least six new bites on his legs, Steve draws the line. He gets up as carefully as he can so Sam doesn’t stir, and uses one page of his sketchbook to leave a note on his pillow. Then he grabs his phone, his wallet, and his car keys, and steps outside. 

The girls, for once, aren’t still up talking. He half-wishes they were, because the sound of the engine starting will probably wake them up. Nothing to be done for it, unfortunately. He climbs into Vera and uses his phone to find the closest 24-hour drug store. It’s an hour away, but it’ll be worth it. 

And, besides, he knows that Sam — for all the times he brews coffee over the fire and swears it’s just as good as machine-made — will appreciate a fresh cappuccino, and the kids probably won’t say no to donuts, either.


	5. Scary Stories (to Overhear in the Dark)

Sam’s eyes open of their own accord. It’s dark, and it takes him a second to recognize the shadowy outline of the trailer’s canvas ceiling above him. Beside him on the mattress, Steve sleeps on his stomach, his face turned away. In the dim light, Steve’s hair is a pale puff that Sam can barely tell apart from the pillowcase. 

He checks the time — it’s almost four. Way too early to get up. But when he closes his eyes again, he realizes he has to pee. 

With a sigh, he gets out of bed as gently as he can, trying not to jostle Steve too much. It works — Steve keeps sleeping. Out of long habit, Sam tugs aside the curtain that they always close on Robbie’s side of the trailer, but Robbie is a silent lump on the mattress, his teddy bear tight to his chest. 

Reassured, Sam fumbles in the dark until he finds his hoodie from the night before. He’s started thinking of it as the campfire hoodie, since it always smells like smoke no matter how many times he washes it. 

As he pulls it on over his head, he hears a whisper, a hint of a giggle buried in the night songs of crickets and tree frogs. He spends a second or two being anxious about an intruder before he remembers: the girls. 

Then he checks his watch again. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” he whispers.

Sam quietly opens the trailer door and and looks out. Sure enough, there’s a flashlight glowing through the translucent material of the tent. Suppressing a sigh, he steps outside. He’s about to tell them to stop talking and go to sleep when he hears what Shayla’s saying. He hesitates, curious despite himself.

“This one is called _Mr. Kitty,”_ she whispers dramatically. “I made it up myself.” 

“You say that about all of them,” Michelle interrupts. “Even when I find them on the Internet later.”

“Well, maybe  _ I _ put them there, did you ever think about that?”

“You do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

“You want to hear the story or not?”

“Okay, okay.” 

As Shayla begins, Sam sits on the dewy picnic table and listens. The story is short, but good, and Shayla’s a good storyteller — when Michelle isn’t interrupting.

“So James buys his fiancée’s son—”

“What’s his fiancée’s name again?”

“Uh,” says Shayla. “Fiona.”

“Okay. And the boy’s name?”

“Jaden,” says Shayla testily. “Can I tell the story now?”

“Jeez, yeah, sorry.”

So the story goes that James buys his step-kid one of those toy cats that meow when you squeeze it. One night, in the middle of the night, he wakes up to find that the kid is crying, so he goes into his room and asks him what’s wrong.

“‘Mr. Kitty fell out of bed and got hurt,’ says Jaden. ‘He doesn’t talk anymore,’” Shayla recounts. “James picks him up, kisses him better—”

“Aw,” says Michelle.

“—and he squeezes him. The cat meows, the same as ever. ‘See?’ says James. ‘Mr. Kitty is fine!’ But Jaden looks up at him and says, ‘That’s the sound effect, that’s not his voice. Mr. Kitty doesn’t  _ talk _ anymore.’”

A tiny chill runs down Sam’s spine.

“Wow,” says Michelle in a voice of quiet reverence. “That’s so scary.”

“Thank you,” Shayla replies. 

She starts to introduce another one when Sam shakes himself back to reality. He came out here to pee, not listen to ghost stories, and besides, his kids are still awake at 4 in the morning. He has to do something about that.

So he stands and walks with very obvious footsteps towards to the tent. 

The girls shush each other at once. “What’s that?” Shayla hisses. “Someone’s out there!”

Sam clears his throat. “It’s Dad,” he says.

“Uh oh,” whispers Michelle. 

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Sam tells them, “and when I get back, there’d better be no flashlights, and no more scary stories, okay? It is well past time to go to bed.”

“Okay,” says Shayla.

“Sorry,” Michelle adds. 

“Goodnight, girls,” Sam says pointedly. 

“Night, Dad,” they echo.

Satisfied, Sam walks away. The moon is high and nearly full, giving him plenty of light — the gravel path is white in the moonlight, stark against the blackened grass. In contrast, the yellowy outdoor light fixture and the harsh fluorescents inside the bathroom cause him near physical pain. He finds the urinal with his eyes half-closed, squinting against the glare.

By the time he’s walking back to the trailer, he’s getting tired. Which is a relief — sometimes these early wake-ups mean the end of the night for him, and by noon the next day he needs a nap, which isn’t likely to happen on a full weekend with the kids. 

As he nears the campsite, he coughs slightly, and watches the light in the girls’ tent switch off. He can still hear some whispering as he nears, but it stops when his feet crunch on the gravel. His daughters are quiet as church mice as he heads up the steps and inside the trailer. 

Steve stirs when he climbs into bed, but Sam rubs his back, and he slips back into sleep before he’s even fully awake. Sam rolls onto his side and watches Steve, trying to match his slow, even breathing. 

But now that he’s here, the fatigue that he felt earlier has receded again. And his brain is busy, running over the encounter with the girls, and Shayla’s ghost story. 

He has to admit it was a good story. Anything with haunted toys is automatically high on Sam’s creep factor — there’s a reason he never saw  _ Chucky. _ He thinks about the implications of the story that Shayla told — that the kid had been talking to the stuffed cat for weeks, and the cat  _ talked back. _

Sam thinks about Robbie, clutching his teddy bear in the other room. Robbie talks to that bear all the time, just like he talks to his dinosaur, and his cowboy, and his little robot that he named Tommy Incredible, a long-lost cousin of the famous Pixar family. Do the toys talk back?

_ That’s crazy, _ Sam reminds himself, but still....

When Michelle first moved in with them, she had a little stuffed dog that she carried everywhere. One time, she told Sam that the dog was afraid of sirens. He remembers comforting the dog, telling the dog that it was okay to be scared, that sirens are scary even for grown-ups. He thinks of the way that Michelle held the dog up to her ear, listened, and nodded. 

What if the dog was actually talking?

Sam has to stop this. It’s 4AM, it’s a silly story that somebody on the internet probably made up — if not, his kid did, and he’s not sure that’s better. He needs to forget it and go back to sleep. Because God knows that Robbie will be up at 5:30, raring to go, and Steve with him.

He starts breathing with Steve again, focusing on nothing but the air moving in and out of his lungs, and closes his eyes. He can sleep. He needs to sleep. He can— 

A chilling memory from his childhood surfaces suddenly: that damn rocking chair at Grandma’s, with that ugly old porcelain doll sitting in it. It moved — Sam knows it moved — when he wasn’t looking. And that rocking chair rocked at night when he slept over. He remembers lying in bed, listening to it creak in the living room. 

“Dammit,” Sam sighs. He checks his watch and finds that almost an hour has passed since he first awoke. Maybe he dozed a little after all, but even if he did, sleep is gone now and won’t return. 

He gets up and finds his running shoes, deciding that he may as well enjoy a beautiful sunrise. 

* * *

“You’re up early,” Steve says, when he leisurely comes down the trailer steps a few minutes before six.

“Woke up around 3, couldn’t get back to sleep,” Sam explains. Even though it was only a few hours ago, his thoughts about which of their kids’ toys might be haunted seem really silly now, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Oh.” Steve eyes him as he takes the cup of campfire coffee that Sam offers. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says — he hopes convincingly. 

Steve sips his coffee, still looking doubtful. “Girls up yet?” he asks quietly.

Sam scoffs. “No. But don’t be too quiet on their account. They were still awake when I got up.”

Steve  _ tsks _ at the tent. “Should I get my bugle? I can play a good Reveille, that’d teach them.”

Sam laughs. “I think that’d get us kicked out of the campground, too, baby.”

“True,” Steve agrees. He puts his hand on Sam’s arm and leans close. Sam closes the gap between them, and they share a sweet coffee kiss. 

Steve’s sharp eyes are assessing him as he pulls back. “You sure you’re all right?” he asks.

“I am now,” Sam says honestly.

* * *

They head to the pool after lunch, since the sun is hot and the girls are grouchy. 

“Probably because you didn’t sleep,” Sam tells them. “Which reminds me: it’s lights out at 9 tonight, no exceptions.”

“Dad—” Michelle starts to protest.

“If my super ears pick up any sound after that,” Steve adds, “one of you is sleeping on the floor of the trailer.”

Shayla turns to Sam with wide eyes, but Sam shakes his head. He’s not going to pretend that he and Steve aren’t a united front on anything, even trivial things — and staying up until 4 in the morning is far from trivial. 

“So I guess that means it’s lights out for us at 9, too?” Sam asks, when they’re seated in deck chairs at the edge of the water. 

“Not necessarily,” Steve replies. “Somebody’s gotta stay up and enforce the curfew. But—” he adds, when Sam yawns, “Maybe it’s not a bad idea to turn in early. You look like you could use the rest.”

“I’m all right,” Sam says, even as the fatigue is catching up with him under the sun. 

“Dads!” Robbie calls suddenly from the shallow end, jerking Sam back to full alertness. “Watch me swim!”

He paddles around in his water wings, just the way they taught him, and Sam gives him a thumbs up. 

“Looking good, buddy,” Steve calls. When he turns back to Sam, though, he’s serious again. 

Sam caves to his stellar interrogation technique. “Okay,” he says with a sigh. “Truth?”

Steve nods. “Truth.”

Sam takes a breath, then stops. “Promise not to laugh,” he instructs.

Steve gives him a strange look, but he nods again. “I promise.”

Sam hesitates, then decides to just say it all at once. “I overheard Shayla telling Michelle one of her ghost stories and it freaked me out so much I couldn’t go back to sleep.”

Steve’s mouth twitches. He slaps a hand over it — his gold wedding band glints in the sun. He coughs once. Twice.

“You said you wouldn’t laugh,” Sam reminds him.

“I’m not,” Steve protests, muffled and still coughing. “I got water in my nose.”

“Steve, you can’t use that excuse when we’re not in the pool,” says Sam, but he’s cracking up, too. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve chokes. “I just wasn’t expecting— I mean. Really, Sam?”

“You weren’t there,” Sam accuses. “Things are different at 3:30 in the morning.”

“I’ll grant you that,” Steve concedes, still chuckling. “What was the story about?”

Sam tells him, and Steve laughs some more, but he also offers to take Robbie to the playground after the pool, so Sam can nap if he needs to. 

Sam loves him. So much, but the nap is a close second.

* * *

When he wakes up, he feels better. He comes out of the trailer to find Steve and the kids sitting around the picnic table playing cards. He sits with them for a bit, but when Michelle says she’s hungry, Sam remembers. 

“I was going to go to the store and get some salt,” he says, getting to his feet. “I forgot we were out.”

“Do we really need it?” Steve asks. Sam can’t tell if he’s concerned about unnecessary sodium or how much they’ll have to pay for it at the camp store.

“We can’t have corn on the cob without salt,” Sam tells him. “You get the fire going, I’ll just be a minute.”

The sun is still bright as he crosses the campground, and several kids criss-cross the path on their bikes while parents shout for them to come home for supper. The old-timers sit on their trailer porches and nod at Sam — sometimes friendly, sometimes suspicious, sometimes both at once in that small-town kind of way. He smiles and says hello when they do, and most of the time that appeases them. 

Everything in the store is ludicrously overpriced — the campground knows that you’re not going to drive an hour to the nearest Walmart when you just need one thing — but as Sam’s waiting for a group of kids to pay for their ice cream with pocket change, he sees something that might be worth the money.

It’s a notebook. The cover is thick and patterned with a faux wood grain. There’s a matching pen tucked into a loop at the edge of the pages and a silky black ribbon sticking out the bottom. Sam grabs it just in time to get to the cashier and pays before he can think twice. 

* * *

After dinner, when Robbie’s in bed and the girls are yawning their way towards their curfew, Sam asks Shayla to join him for a walk to get a look at the stars before the moon rises. She’s wary, like maybe she thinks she’s in trouble, but when Sam hands her the notebook, her expression changes.

“What’s this, Daddy?” she asks.

“It’s a gift,” Sam replies simply, “for your gift.”

Shayla looks even more confused. 

“I overheard your one of your stories last night,” Sam confesses. “It was good.”

Shayla looks down, shy. She’s never told a story in front of him or Steve, no matter how many times Michelle’s asked her to. 

“So I want you to do me a favor,” Sam goes on. He nods at the notebook. “Start writing them down.”

“Thanks, but… I already do,” Shayla mumbles, like she doesn’t want to seem ungrateful.

But Sam just grins. He suspected as much — he’d seen far too much scribbling for math homework at the end of last semester. 

“Well, now you have a book that’s just for campfire stories,” he says. “You can add a new one to it every trip.”

Shayla’s eyes are gleaming in the starlight, and she nods. “I will.”

Sam offers a hug, which she takes. “You’ve got talent, baby girl,” he tells her. “Keep at it.”

“Okay,” she says into his shoulder. “Thanks, Dad.”

“So, did I wake you up?” she asks a few minutes later, when they’re walking back to the campsite.

“No,” says Sam. “I don’t know what woke me up, but it wasn’t you.”

“Oh. I thought maybe we were too loud.”

“I couldn’t hear you,” Sam says carelessly, and then he remembers that he’s supposed to be enforcing a curfew. “Uh, but I wasn’t listening. Tonight I will. Or Steve will, anyway.”

“Right. Okay, Dad,” says Shayla, in that way that teenagers do when they know they can get away with something.

Sam chuckles, letting it slide. “Look, you can use your flashlight at all hours if you want to write, I don’t care. But there’s no need to be staying up all night freaking people out.”

Shayla gives him a shrewd sideways look. “You were freaked out?”

Sam realizes what he just said and mock-groans. “Why do my kids have to be so smart? What curse is this?”

Shayla laughs. Their campsite is only feet away, and both Steve and Michelle look up at the sound. 

“What’s funny?” Michelle asks, as they step onto the grass.

“Dad was scared by my story last night,” Shayla announces proudly.

Sam hangs his head in shame while Michelle laughs, and Steve keeps a stoic face with obvious effort.

“Ooh, was it the one where the skeleton people cook the boy for dinner?” Michelle asks excitedly. “Or the one where the photos come to life at night and suck the girl’s soul out her nose while she’s sleeping? Or—”

“Oh, God,” Steve interrupts, alarmed. “What on earth have you been telling her, Shayla?”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “It’s just a story, Dad. It’s not real.”

“Yeah, Steve, it’s not real,” Sam emphasizes with a pointed look.

Steve glares at him for half a second, but then he nods. “Right,” he says. “Right, okay. Time to brush your teeth.”

They go through the nighttime rituals, Michelle and Shayla promising that they’ll go right to sleep tonight. Sam doubts it, but he’s happy to live in denial and let Steve handle enforcement tonight. Yawning, he turns down the blanket on his side of the bed and finds Robbie’s stuffed monkey staring at him. 

He jumps, startled, then turns to Steve, who’s not-so-innocently taking off his sweatshirt while watching Sam from the corner of his eye.

“Really?” Sam says to him. 

Steve breaks, snorting with laughter that he’s trying to keep quiet for the sake of Robbie.

“You’re lucky there’s no couch, or you’d be on it,” Sam tells him in an undertone. 

“Aw, come on, Sam,” Steve protests. “Without me, who’s gonna protect you from the scary evil monkey?”

Sam frees said monkey from the covers and throws it at Steve’s head. Of course, Mr. Super Reflexes catches it easily, but the gesture makes Sam feel better. 

Then Steve sets the monkey down on the tiny table, facing Sam directly.

“You know, I could make you sleep on the ground,” Sam adds.

Steve chuckles while he finishes getting into his pyjamas. “You don’t mean that.”

Sam gives him the eyebrow that advises him not to tempt fate. 

They climb into bed and extinguish the battery-operated lamp they’d been using to see. In the darkness, Sam’s early morning catches up with him fast. He closes his eyes and feels sleep pull at him. But he’s not quite comfy — he rolls over, into Steve’s arms and rests his head on Steve’s chest. 

“Better?” Steve murmurs.

Sam nods. “Mm hmm.”

“Good.” Steve shifts slightly, brushes his lips against Sam’s head. “Told you you didn’t mean it. Making me sleep on the ground would punish you more than me.”

“Sleeping now,” Sam mumbles as a way out of this conversation. 

Steve’s small laugh rumbles loudly in his ear, but he lets it be.

Sam is almost asleep when the thought crosses his mind, and, unfortunately, it won’t be quieted. After a moment of wrestling with it, he gets out of bed and turns the monkey around so it’s facing the other way. 

“Not a word,” he tells Steve, settling back into his arms. “Not a damn word.”

“Not a damn word,” Steve agrees seriously, and Sam finally falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read the real Mr. Kitty story (actually Carmel the Cat): [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bhbyx/reddit_what_is_your_creepiest_most_unnerving/c0mu117) if you're interested. Another fun fact: the stories that Michelle lists at the end are both stories I terrified my sister with when I was Shayla's age.


End file.
